Found
by montez
Summary: missing scene from "Countdown" leading up to Ryan and Esposito finding Castle and Beckett in the storage container.


Found  
By Montez  
Disclaimer: Still don't own, but I bought the book J

_A/N: This came to mind while in the midst of writing my other Castle story, so I had to take a minute to get it out of my head. This is spoilerish if you haven't seen Countdown. This is from the others POV when no one can locate Beckett and Castle. Starts out from Ryan's, then moves between the other characters. Just wanted to take a shot at the other side of the coin with this-hope it worked. Thanks-Montez_

"Ryan," Kevin Ryan's phone just rang, it had been a few hours since Castle's daughter, Alexis, had called him looking for her dad. The teen had told him she had tried her father's cell phone and he wasn't answering, but it looked like he had been at the apartment. She wanted to know if he was at the precinct.

The detective tried to calm the worry going in his stomach as he calmly told the teen that Castle was probably out with Beckett and that he would try to get a hold of them. Quickly telling Esposito what was up the young detective called Beckett's phone, it too going to voice mail, something the officer knew never happened. Detective Kate Beckett was nothing if not committed to her job and would never go without answering her phone.

"She's not answering" Ryan told Esposito, both men exchanging a worried look.

"Well, they weren't to happy being tossed off the case, especially when Castle just figured he was trying to help." Esposito looked toward the 'murder board', "Damn… you don't think they are still trying to work this do you?"

"This is Beckett and Castle we're talking about." Ryan commented as he headed toward the room where Captain Montgomery was talking with Fallon.

Stepping from the room a few minutes later both detectives were getting frustrated. Not only from the potential threat of a dirty bomb exploding inside Manhattan, but the fact the Captain didn't seem as concerned about the inability to get a hold of either Beckett or Castle as they were. Ryan reached for the phone on his desk as his partner sat on the edge, "What are you doing?"

"We know they are probably working the case right?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah, Beckett's not gonna give up that easy and we know Castle isn't happy until he has things figured out." Esposito responded.

"Okay, so we have uniforms go back over the crime scenes, the warehouse and storage facility. Maybe they are out checking them again to see if something was missed and stumbled onto something, but aren't able to call in for help." Ryan dialed, waiting for dispatch to pick up.

"I don't like the sound of that." Javier stood, rounding his desk, worst case scenarios playing in his mind.

"Yeah, me neither…" Kevin's attention drawn to the voice on the other end, "Yes, this is Detective Ryan, Homicide; I'd like to have patrols recanvas a couple crime scenes for me." Esposito nodded, a couple patrols wouldn't interfere with the current search for the bomb and may very well be for nothing, but his gut told him they had good reason for the worry and he silently prayed this bad day wouldn't be getting any worse.

"Ryan," Kevin Ryan's phone just rang, his eye's flying up to meet his partner, across the desk from him, "Where? You sure it's hers? Okay, we're on our way, wait for us." Kevin slammed the phone down, taking off toward the Captain's office, Javier right behind him. "Captain, we found Beckett's car outside one of the crime scenes, patrol hasn't found them outside the building. I told them to wait for us before going in."

Worry crossed the captain's face as he stood, motioning to Fallon, who was in the other room on the phone. Fallon entered the room, hoping for the much needed lead they had been praying for, "We may have something, I'll explain on the way."

The four men rushed from the office, Fallon calling in additional officers as they raced to the cars, "You're going to have to explain to me how a detective I threw off this case and a civilian are still running around investigating this." Fallon sounded pissed as he got into the driver's seat of his vehicle, Montgomery getting in the passenger side.

"Beckett's the best I have, she doesn't back down from a challenge. You tossing her off the case was like daring her to find the answer, she won't quite until she does. Throw in Castle and honestly you never know how it's going to work, but it inevitably does." Montgomery defended his detective, proud of her for not letting it go, but worried about what kind of trouble her and Castle had possibly gotten themselves into.

Ryan and Esposito arrived first, uniforms still searching around the warehouse and nearby alleys, Fallon and Montgomery driving up less than a minute later. "I want scanners going in first, if that bomb is anywhere around here we need to be cautious." Fallon ordered. Bomb squad moved in first, Ryan, Esposito, Fallon and Montgomery next, uniforms bring up the rear.

It took all Ryan and Esposito had to not call out for their friends. Bomb squad got low levels of residual radiation, but no sign of the bomb, the bad guys or their missing detective and author. It was then a uniform shouted out about finding bullet casings. The detectives started looking around at the containers near them, their flashlights quickly picking up on several dents on the surround containers, "Return fire." Esposito mumbled as he touched one of the spots. "Start checking containers!" He shouted as he and Ryan started with the ones they were next to.

They could hear the units being opened in the distance; the shouts of clear told them no one had been found. There were three more on the aisle the two detectives were on. Pausing Ryan looked at a gage on the side of the next box he was getting ready to open, "Freezer container…" He glanced at his partner as a terrible feeling came over him, "God, you don't think?" Both men reacted at the same time, Esposito lifting the handle, the freezing temperature reaching them before they even had the door opened.

Their flashlights caught something on the floor near the back of the container, both men felt their heart rates increase, "We got something here!" Ryan shouted.

"Castle?" Esposito mumbled as Ryan shined his flashlight in the direction his friend had. The site before them took a moment to comprehend. Ten feet into the container, against the wall were the huddled, unmoving forms of Beckett and Castle. "We need medic's now, officer down!" Ryan shouted as the sound of pounding feet neared their location, he and Esposito hurriedly making their way to their fallen comrades.

"No, no, no, this isn't happening." Esposito mumbled as he dropping in front of the two, Ryan kneeling next to him. Neither man had seen anyone as pale and still as the two people in front of them that weren't already dead. "Come on Beckett, you don't get to check out this easy." Javier spoke, reaching toward his bosses face.

"Are they?" Ryan asked as he watched Javier lay a hand against Beckett's neck, it took a moment for him to answer.

"I don't…" Esposito moved his hand again, pressing a little harder, desperate to find a pulse, "She's freezing. Check Castle."

Ryan reached a hand out toward the man that had made their lives at the precinct extremely more interesting, silently praying he wouldn't have to call the man's daughter back with bad news. Montgomery made it to the container, just as paramedics arrived, "What hap…" He paused at seeing what appeared to be the lifeless forms of his best detective and her shadow.

"I can't feel…" Ryan mumbled as he looked disbelieving to his partner, who still hadn't commented on whether he felt a pulse on Beckett or not. Without a word the EMT's pushed in, the detectives stepping back, shock and fear on their faces, neither man had been able to detect a pulse, so they waited as the medic's set about their work, slowly disentangling Castle's arms that were securely around Beckett's in a futile attempt to keep her warm.

Once they were separated, they were quickly moved to stretchers before the medics even attempted to assess their conditions. Once they were wheeled from the containers, they were quickly moved to the two ambulances that were back up just outside the warehouse doors. It was there, in the warmth of the vehicles that assessments were started.

Ryan, Esposito and Montgomery hovered between the two, waiting to see if Castle and Beckett were even still alive. "I got a pulse, respiration shallow, but steady," was the shout from the first bus, the one with Detective Kate Beckett inside. "We need to start warming her slowly, she's got moderate hypothermia, there doesn't appear to be any other injuries."

"What do we have?" The three men turned around at the sound of a new, yet familiar, voice coming up behind them. Josh, Kate's doctor boyfriend quickly made his way past the men and into the ambulance that contained Kate.

"How'd you get here?" Esposito asked as the doctor looked over what the EMT had just written down, then did a quick check of Kate himself.

Josh looked up only a moment before returning his attention to the woman before him, "Friend of mines the driver, when he realized who he was coming for, he called me."

"Got a pulse here too, faint but steady, respiration shallow." A shout from the other rig had the officers looking toward it.

"There's someone else?" Josh jumped from the back of Kate's ambulance, quickly moving toward the next one.

"Yeah, it's Castle." Ryan answered as Josh paused a second.

"The writer guy?" He'd met the man once, listened to Kate go on about how annoying the guy could be, but how he also was helpful on cases, thinking outside the box, helping them see what they wouldn't normally.

With a nod from Kevin, Josh jumped into the back, starting an assessment on the unconscious man. "Are they gonna be alright?" Ryan asked.

Finishing his check, Josh stepped down from the second bus. "Moderate hyperthermia, we have to warm them slowly. As long as nothing presents itself, we can do that here. They may be out a bit, but other than being a bit sluggish they should be okay. I'll give them about an hour, if they don't show signs of waking I'll send them on in." Josh said making his way back to Kate's ambulance.

Thirty minutes passed, Fallon and Montgomery were coordinating searches of the surrounding areas as CSU combed the warehouse for clues as to where the bomb had gone and who was behind it, now that Fallon's main suspect was dead in the freezer container with a bullet hole in his head. Ryan and Esposito, though fielding questions from uniforms, hovered around the rigs containing their friends.

Josh's voice brought their attention to Kate's, "She starting to wake up."

"Cas…tle?" Kate's voice sounded so small, so vulnerable as she struggled to open her eyes, her body involuntarily shaking as a chill slide through her.

"Kate it's me, Josh. You're just waking up, you're suffering from hypothermia, do you remember what happened?" Ryan and Esposito stood at the door, watching as their tough as nails boss slowly returned to consciousness.

"So…cold…" Her teeth chattered a moment as she tried to look around, "Bomb…where's Castle?" Her voice getting stronger as she didn't see the man she'd been trapped with, who had tried to keep her warm and awake.

She started to struggle to sit up, but Josh's hand kept her back. "Take it easy Kate; you're going to be groggy for a bit."

Beckett reached up and grabbed his arm, "Where's Rick?" her eye's clearing as she didn't see him in the ambulance with her. She remembered the realization that no one was coming, that they were going to freeze to death before anyone would find them, that they had found the bomb only for it to be too late for them to stop it. She remembered sitting down on the cold steel floor of the container, never feeling more helpless and defeated. Kate remembered Castle sitting down beside her, reaching around her shoulder, pulling her close to him. At first she wanted to resist, waited for his sarcastic remarks about being so close to one another, but they didn't come, he just pulled her tighter to him. It was then she felt the warmth just beneath his jacket, he was trying to keep her warm.

They had been quiet for several minutes as she finally accepted the offered warmth, curling into his side. Never once did the normal Castle banter come, God she had so wanted his comments at that moment. It would have told her things weren't as bad as they seemed, that they weren't really freezing to death in a damn container, in a damn warehouse where nobody but the bad guys knew where they were. The only words she remembers hearing from him was a whispered, 'sorry'. Her fogging mind couldn't understand what he was sorry for, she was barely able to understand the defeat in his voice as she finally succumbed to the cold, her last thought of wishing she could have told him what he meant to her and now, he wasn't there and fear filled her soul, "Where is Castle?" Kate's tone becoming nearly as cold as she felt, especially since no one was answering her.

It was Ryan's voice that drew her attention, "He's in the next ambulance, he's still unconscious." Worry was clearly heard in the younger man's voice.

Kate felt a weight lift from her, he was alive. He wasn't awake yet, but he was alive. "I need to see him." Josh reluctantly moved, grabbing a blanket to wrap around her as she moved slowly to get up. He helped her to the doors, Ryan and Esposito took over from there, easing her to the ground. Each keeping contact with her arms as they led her the few feet that separated her from Castle.

She took in the blanket covered figure on the stretcher, could just barely make out his pale face at the other end, a heart monitor on the side wall showed the steady beat of his heart, he was alive. The two detectives felt the moment Kate's legs gave a little; they quickly got her seated back on the step of the first ambulance.

Esposito tried to distract her from the haunted look that had overtaken her face, "Captain Montgomery and Fallon are going to want to talk to you. Fallon wasn't too happy that you too went off on your own."

It worked as a fire returned to her gaze, "If he hadn't thrown us out we wouldn't have." Ryan and Esposito shared a smile as that was the Kate Beckett they knew. Kevin motioned for the captain to let him know Beckett was awake.

However, neither detective missed how her eyes kept watching Castle's ambulance, knowing she would give Montgomery what she knew, but she wouldn't talk to Fallon or be to far from the rigs until she heard Castle's voice. Twenty minutes later it was the sound of him calling out her name that finally put a smile on the female detective's face. They had gotten through this, they had survived, the thought of the bomb momentarily pushed away as their eye's met, a look of relief crossing Castle's face as he saw her, a slight smile crossing hers, she hadn't lost him. He was there, just like he promised he would be.


End file.
